


where to drop the knife of separation

by smallredboy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Love, M/M, Multi, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Prison, Prison Breaks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: Matthew Brown spends six years in prison.
Relationships: Matthew Brown/Will Graham, Matthew Brown/Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	where to drop the knife of separation

**Author's Note:**

> a commish for my dear friend envy. first time writing matthew stuff, so i hope this is good.
> 
> enjoy!

Matthew has heard bits and pieces of what has happened while he's been locked up.

After he attempted to kill Hannibal, he went into a short trial that found him guilty of attempted murder, even as he explained that he had _confirmed_ he was the Ripper to him, saying that if he was going to be the Ripper in his place he'd have to eat him — but that didn't matter to the jury. Even if the man you killed was a dangerous serial killer, you would still be charged with murder. He guesses that's fair, but it's still bothersome. All he was trying to do was do what Will wanted him to do, a revenge for all he had went through, and now he's stuck here, with a forty year sentence in the place where he used to _work_ at.

It's humiliating. But it's what he gets for wanting to have the man he loves be happy because of something he did. If he had succeeded at killing Hannibal, the police would've been free to check his house, seen everything that made it clear who he is. As time rolls on, he knows that eventually he'll be caught, that he'll be put in the same exact position he's in. Although he probably won't be in gen pop; no, he needs to be more _closely examined_ than him now, doesn't he?

It is a little over a year and a half since his sentencing when he starts to hear rumors that Hannibal Lecter is in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He doesn't ever see him, but by all means it seems that he _is_ , in fact, there, in the same four walls as he is. He surmises he's probably not gotten the death penalty, as much as he should.

Chilton finally comes to see him a month after the rumors start up, limping toward his cell as he stares him down.

"You didn't listen," Matthew tells him.

He huffs. "Of course we didn't listen to you. It seemed as if you were trying to save face after being accused of _first degree attempted murder_."

"I knew the fact he's the Chesapeake Ripper wouldn't do anything to change my sentencing," he argues back. "But I thought you may have wanted to _know_ that I tried to kill a murderer. Not just a regular old Lithuanian man with a penchant for being a pretentious asshole." He huffs. "How is Will, by the way?"

"Hannibal surrendered right outside his cabin in Wolf Trap," he informs him. There's a degree of petulance in his voice. "It seems Will's affections didn't stay with you, Mr. Brown."

Matthew groans at that. "Shut _up_."

"Just telling it how it is," he says. "He was _using_ you, Matthew. I don't know if you realize that. He knew you had a puppy crush on him and decided to try and get Hannibal killed through it."

"Dr. Chilton," he says, voice ever so slightly strained. "I know you enjoy torturing your patients, but I have no interest in hearing about what you think of me and Will Graham's connection." He steps away from the bars of his cell and gets back on his bunk, laying there and looking up at the drab ceiling of his four walls of imprisonment.

"I will leave you to your fantasies of Will Graham caring about you, then," he says. 

Will hasn't even visited him throughout all this time. Maybe Chilton is right, and maybe he never cared about him. But he's still into him, so he'll keep going. Eventually he'll find a way out of here and he'll court him, sneak his way into his heart. It can't be that hard, right? After Hannibal must've broken his for him to have surrendered right outside his cabin...

It takes far too long for anything to happen after that. The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane is too well secured for him to plan his escape beyond daydreams and ridiculous fantasies of Will Graham smiling at him, saying that he's proud of him for figuring out a way to escape and kissing him on the lips. Hannibal is still here, although he's still unseen, a shadow, a rumor.

Three years after Chilton's visit, he starts to hear the new word that goes through the prison quick, a wildfire of a rumor: Hannibal escaped prison with Will's help. Hannibal and Will are on the run together after killing another serial killer together. Hannibal and Will are the _murder husbands_ , as nicknamed by TattleCrime, and they are in love and they are together. They ran off to Europe together, came looking for each other.

He tries not to be jealous. Jealousy doesn't help anyone. Jealousy, all in all, will only make him more miserable as he lives hiis days out in this little cell, with his shitty prison meals and the activities making him feel like clawing his skin off. It's fine. He'll be fine. He won't be jealous, and he won't think about Hannibal and Will killing people together, out there somewhere, eating human meat, smiling at each other, pulling each other into kisses.

He's not jealous. No, he isn't jealous. Why would he be?

* * *

"I think we should break Matthew out of prison," Will tells Hannibal, apropos of nothing, while cuddled up in bed.

They're still in the North American continent, somehow, albeit Hannibal's protests that it was _too close_ and that they should be going off to Argentina or something of the sort, perhaps even somewhere in Africa if they were feeling particularly careful. But what's the thrill if the FBI isn't a few months away from walking up to their doorstep, really? They're in Mexico, and he has seen photos of themselves along the border. _HAVE YOU SEEN THESE MEN? ¿HAS VISTO A ESTOS HOMBRES?_ on the top of the pictures, like a missing persons poster more than an Old West WANTED one.

Hannibal goes stiff against him. "Is that the man who crucified me?" he asks. "I never quite caught his name."

"You literally were in his trial," Will points out, curling up ever closer to him. "But yes." He hums. "I'm sure he won't do anything of the sort again, dear. He did it simply to gain my approval. If he sees I love you, then there is no reason for him to hurt you anymore."

"Mm." He smiles and turns around to kiss Will on the lips. "I don't see any problem with that. He is being held in Chilton's asylum, yes?"

"That he is." He hums. "It'll be hard work to break him out. But I'm sure we'll manage."

"We always manage," Hannibal says. "We will break him out of prison, my love. And he may join us after all."

"Oh, he will." Will lets out a little laugh at that. "He's probably still sick in love with me. It's cute. He's cute." He pauses. "You're okay with that, right? I'm not like, sick in love with him too, but I'm sure I can pull at something with him, if you're okay with it that is."

"Of course," Hannibal says. "I am a hedonist, after all, my dear Will. Why would I not be okay with you having more partners than just myself?"

"I don't know," he says. "I doubted you wouldn't like the idea, but I had to make sure. Healthy communication and boundaries and all that, you know?" He chuckles. "I know you are barely aware of what those are, my love, but I do want a healthy relationship with you. As much as possible, that is."

"I want you to have a healthy relationship with me as well, dear," he says. "I'll try my best to respect all the boundaries you set in place." 

They fall into silence afterward, the only noise the sound of their breathing. 

Will is the one to break it. "So we'll have to go through the border again, huh?"

"It's hard work, but I am sure we'll be able to get right back to Baltimore, dear."

He can't wait to see Matthew's face when they break him out.

* * *

Matthew doesn't know what to do with himself, with this knowledge, this anger and this jealousy.

He paces his cell, he does his workouts, he stares at the ceiling and fantasizes about a world where Hannibal Lecter is six feet underground, where instead of theatrics and imagery he chose the easy way out, drowning him in the pool water. Will wouldn't be impressed with him then, while crucifying him and bleeding him would definitely have a lot more appeal. 

He knows he didn't know Will enough; he knows he's just creating an image of him from thin air, his fantasies and recollections all false and unlike reality. But it's not like he will ever see Will again, so it doesn't matter; so he can focus on this fantasy version of the man he fell in love with as soon as he read the newspaper headline about him.

The days go by, and the days go by, and the days go by. He's gone a little mad here, as much as he was already mad to begin with. It's too much to deal with, this routine that stretches on for as long as he has time in this earth. He's thirty-six, five years into his sentence; when it's over he'll be seventy-one. He will have no life to live except the one in a homeless shelter. He'd be better off killing himself as soon as he's out. 

It's late at night when he hears something. He wakes up, listens to the way there's people yelling over the intercom, murmurs and cries and he feels like something big is happening. Is there a riot, somewhere in the prison? There aren't many. It's hard to create a riot in a hospital like this one. And this late at night...

When he sees Will, he thinks he may be dreaming. He looks just as dreamy as he always imagines him, but somehow different, the details fuzzier— he's wearing an overcoat and his facial hair is thicker, his hair longer, his blue eyes sparkling with interest as he looks at him. He looks at his side and he sees Hannibal; he's wearing a three piece suit, which is covered in blood and his hair is longer than when he tried to kill him, it curling at his nape.

"Open it up," Will says, with a confidence unlike what he saw of him what feels like millennia ago.

Hannibal takes a crowbar from his pocket and starts snapping the bars of his cell open, one by one.

Matthew stares, unable to believe in what he's seeing. 

"Will?" he asks, eyes wide.

He smiles at him, ever so kindly, and it makes his heart explode in his chest. "Yes. I am here, Matthew. I'm getting you out of here."

"How on Earth did you—"

"Doesn't matter," Hannibal replies, voice slightly raspy as he works at the bars, until he's able to walk through them. "Get out of there, now. We can discuss everything when we are _out_ of Baltimore."

Matthew touches the leftover material of the bars for a few seconds, like this may be a hallucination, a prolonged lucid dream he can't manage to wake from. But no— it's real. He's getting out of here because Will and Hannibal deemed it worth their time.

He smiles and manages to get out of his cell.

"Let's go," Will says. He offers him his hand.

He takes it. It's cold, but it's Will's.

As they run out of the establishment he's been held in for years, they come across guards that are looking for them. The way Hannibal kills them are over-the-top and make his eyes widen; but all he can do is hold onto Will's hand tighter as they run out of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

It is raining outside, immediately soaking through his prison jumpsuit, that ugly orange he has stared at for days on end. He sneezes and Will helps him through the rainfall, hand wrapped around his as they go until they get to a car and Will gets on the steering wheel, Hannibal settling on the backseat with Matthew at his side.

Will starts to drive somewhere, although Matthew can't quite make out where through the rain, everything about the scenery feeling foreign. He used to know Baltimore like it was the back of his hand, but it seems to have changed throughout the years he's been locked up. The details are fuzzy, sometimes wrong, houses bigger, shops closed.

Hannibal is changing clothes next to him, getting rid of the bloody three piece suit by simply throwing it out of the window while at an empty street. When he's done changing, he turns to Matthew.

"Would you like to change clothes? We bought some for you. It may not fit you, though— we were kind of guessing about your size."

Matthew stares at him for a few seconds, unable to parse this. It's weird, to see Hannibal outside of where he caught him, crucified him, bled him. There is no rancor in his eyes, not a single drop of it— if anything, he's as amicable as he could possibly be. He swallows thickly. "I'd like to, yeah," he replies. He sneezes again. Prison jumpsuits really aren't made for the rain, he may be coming down with a cold.

Hannibal hands him a change of clothes and he makes quick work of getting in them. It's nothing out of this world, and he wonders where they bought them (or stole them from, as the case may be); dress pants and a button-up, with a thick jacket which he needs as he's quite cold.

"Thank you," he says.

"You're welcome," he replies. He offers him a blanket. "I know you must be quite cold, with the rain and whatnot, so here."

He lets out a breath. "Okay. Thank you." He wraps himself on it and sighs as warmth envelops him. "Where are we going?"

"Mexico," Will replies, looking at him through the rearview mirror. "After that we plan to head toward Argentina."

"Okay." He pauses. Silence follows afterward, and he stares at his fingernails. "Why?" he asks, finally, as the minutes pass.

"Why what?" Will asks.

"Why did you break me out?"

He smiles at him. "I thought you needed to have the favor you did for me returned."

Hannibal huffs playfully. "My husband is ignoring the fact said _favor_ was an attempt on my life, but don't worry about it now, Matthew. It's in the past, and I hold nothing against you."

"Oh please, I knew you'd live," Will replies. "But really, Matthew, don't sweat it. Hannibal won't kill you in your sleep."

He laughs at that. "I sure hope so," he replies. "Well, thank you for getting me out of there. I was going a little bit crazy."

"Oh, Chilton's asylum is really maddening, I agree," Will says. "Although probably not so much so for Hannibal. That bastard had all the privileges given to him in a silver platter. You and I had to be _regular prisoners_."

"I apologize for not being a regular prisoner, my dear," Hannibal replies.

It's weird to see Will be the _real deal_. Of course, he's known for a while that he has become the real deal, but back when he actually saw him he was just a scared man, trying to find answers for what was happening to him. Or rather, trying to find proof for what was happening to him, fully aware of the culprit. Now he's become the lover and accomplice of the man he once asked him to kill. It's strange, to see him like this. He's a lot happier than he was in his cell, that's for sure. More _alive_.

"I am going to sleep, I think," he says. "I'm rather tired."

"Of course," Will says. "It's a lengthy trip to the border. Afterward we need to sneak past the guards, though. So we'll wake you up when we're close by."

He hums. "Okay."

"Good night, Matthew," Hannibal says.

"Good night, Hannibal, Will."

* * *

Falling into a domestic rhythm with Hannibal and Will is strange, but not unwelcome.

There's a bit of silence about the matter that is most important, at least in his opinion— they never discuss why he helped Will, why he was so infatuated with him, down to the point of obsession. Why he killed that man to show his respect, mailed him his ear. They don't ask him about it, a complete act of avoidance. 

Is he intruding? As he sleeps in the guest bedroom of the house Hannibal and Will are living at in Juárez, he can't help but wonder if he's intruding. He doesn't understand why they would take him out of prison simply for him to feel as an intruder in their happy, murderous marriage. It doesn't quite make sense. He simply wants answers, but it's hard to come across them when he can't seem to break the silence.

After a few weeks of living with them (and quite a few dinners of most certainly human meat), he decides to break the silence. 

Will has an empathy disorder, anyway, right? This is his whole thing. There's no way he doesn't know what he feels for him. He's just waiting for him to come clean about it before he talks to him about it. Or something. He hopes that's it, that he's not somehow clueless to his entire interest in him.

He stands up after dinner, some fancy Mexican dish he can't recall the name of, it having left his brain as soon as Hannibal named it.

"I wanted to talk to you guys about something," he says.

Will gives him a knowing look. "Yes? We're all ears, Matthew."

Hannibal looks at him, interested.

"Well," he says. He clears his throat. "I'm... uh. I'm sure you know that I was infatuated with you, Will, back in the day, when you weer in prison, and that's why I helped you. I was romantically interested in you."

He nods. "Yes, I do know that."

"Well." He clears his throat, fiddles with his hands. "Those feelings are, well, they're still a thing now. They've only persisted through my years in prison, I'm goign to be honest here. I was alone and I fantasized about you a lot." He trails off and looks at Hannibal. "I hope you're okay with all this, I understand if not, but I also guessed you two were aware and it feels very... weird to break me out of prison just to reject me." He swallows. "I don't know. I'm rambling."

Will smiles and stands up as well, walking toward him. For one second he worries he's about to get stabbed. "You spent all your time in prison overthinking, didn't you?" he teases. 

His worries fade with that, and he lets Will in as he kisses him sweetly. It's better than all his fantasies put together— nothing compares to the real thing, to feeling Will's lips on him, that sensation of him holding the nape of his neck as he pulls him ever closer, until they're pressed close together, chest-to-chest.

He pulls away after a few seconds, gasping for air, and Will pulls him into another kiss. When they finally tire of each other, Matthew turns to Hannibal, who is smiling as he stands up.

"You have my blessing," he says, rather playfully. "Will asked me on my feelings about this when we decided to break you out of prison. Everything about this is fine with me, Matthew. Do not worry about it."

"Okay," he says. "I know we started our, uh, connection on a bad foot, Hannibal, but I'd love to spend more time with you. You seem like an interesting man to get along with."

Will chuckles and kisses his cheek. "He is quite an interesting man. I wouldn't be against this growing into a triangle rather than a v."

Hannibal hums. "I'd love to see something of that sort pan out, as well. I'll leave you two to it, but Matthew, you can join me and Will in our bedroom tonight, if you so wish." 

"Of course," Matthew says. As soon as Hannibal goes upstairs, Will pulls him into another kiss.

There's a certain comfort in knowing he has all he's ever wanted during these last six years, and even more than that.

**Author's Note:**

> check out my [writing tumblr](smallredb0y.tumblr.com)!
> 
> please kudo if you liked this, and maybe leave a comment! :)


End file.
